Over US$11bn is spent on PR and the burning question is "how do we measure the impact?"
Actually now we can, with even more detail now thanks to technology but with some of the basic principles which have been in place for over 30 years. I heard them from one of the original authors in Singapore in 1996!
Firstly, let's talk about the Active Communications Index: our simple formula which addresses the need to measure inputs before worrying about outputs.
Content x Channels x Frequency. There's more on our website about this here.
Then I am going to take you through some platforms which can be used for free or low cost, and also one of the biggest service providers.
Coveragebook.com is a platform we use as measurement and evaluation is such a big part of where PR is at the moment. This service combines both strong analytics and excellent design. It visualises the impact of campaigns in a single comprehensive, intelligent and user-friendly way. It's really useful because it tells you immediately the page views and domain authority of the media your coverage appears in.
Sentiment analysis is important because it's not enough to be spoken about, as Gerald Ratner found out in 1991 when he lost GBP500m overnight; there was too much negative publicity. TalkWalker.com has ‘free social media monitoring tools’ to track all sentiment. I've been using this platform to measure our work on the Ineos Grenadier launch today.
Carma is the one of the largest media monitoring and sentiment analysis firms in the world with offices in 5 countries and over 500 staff. Really there isn't much this company can't do and it's global so that helps for international campaigns.
I mention the standards body so you can go and find out more if you want to. AMEC (the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication) is on hand to help. Great tools to check out include the Integrated Evaluation Framework (IEF), a useful guide to building a solid measurement framework based on industry best practice, and the Measurement Maturity Mapper (M3), a diagnostic tool designed to help you understand where you are in your measurement journey.
Professor Jim Macnamara of the University of Technology Sydney created this IEF and I remember meeting in Singapore in 1996 when he headed up the Mass Communications Group of Australia. He was sharing the vision of the importance of measurement 30 years ago and deserves credit today for the fact that he is keeping the industry-relevant and measurement-based. He sold his business to Carma.
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